124 --nrffìUI1' \\ 'I EE artichokes, I Jlli ' most modern . ,lm ' - 1 r non-experimental ' I Amencan novels I J , I There IS the conven- \ y _ \ \ tional but nticing I , ., , 'outer covenng of 4 ' , .. '&\ d,?(? ð \>. "'" place, actIon, dIa- logue:, and charac- ter; the spik} Intermediate section of symbol or allegory; ánd the heart, where the delicate, luminous lump of moral insight rests. Jerome Weid- man's new novel, "The Enemy Camp" (Random House), a Book-of-the- Month Club choice, appears to he one of these novels; it -is a long (five hun- dred and sixty-one pages), careful, plotty book, full of active, garrulous people, prophetic figures, symbolic events, and earnest moral considera- tions. But after one finishes the book- so painstakingly mapped out, so neatly written-one abruptly realizes that something is wrong. For although it labors over honesty, religious prejudice, love, and pity, these are merely an In- tense smoke screen, which, when pene- trated, conceals nothing more than an expert, very old-fashioned melodrama. The seemingly rounded principal fig- ures are actually that celebrated nIne- teenth-century triumvirate of the perse- cuted and partly crippled heroine; the strong, stubborn, dense hero; and the arch-villain. Moreover, they are in- volved in the same old operatics. At the age of only ten, the hero wakes up one morning with a premonition that some- one he knows wIll die that day (some- one does). The hero is accused of a crime committed by the villain, mas- querading as his friend. The vilLtin steals the heroine from under the hero's nose on theIr wedding day, and, to com- pound the misery, ransacks hIS quarters. On top of that, Mr. Weidman pulls a happy ending out of a situation involv- ing-among other things-attempted extortion, near adultery, deception, and lying. All thIs, though, takes place in the midst of a bulging fretwork of sociolog- ica] and just plain home-furnishings de- tail-a novelistic device that has been brought to a near art during the past couple of decades by such documenta- rians as Steinbeck, Dos Passos, Cozzens, and Marquand. In fact, the first hun- dred pages of the hook are a Cozzensl-ike savoring of just six or seven hours in what starts out as an average day for its BOOKS Happily Ever After, wztlz Footnotes hero, George H urst, who, raIsed a poor orphan on New York's lower East Side, has become a successful accountant , with a house In Connecticut, a beautiful wife, and two children. Hurst IS sum- moned to the telephone. A lot of things happen before he gets there: "Tell Miss Akst to hold on " he called up the back stairs to his wife. "I'll be right with her." He stepped back into the bathroom, snatched a towel, glanced hastily into the mirror, saw that the red staIn was spread- ing down the lather in two tiny rivulets, and pressed a corner of the towel against the cut as he hurried out of the bathroom and across the kitchen toward the phone. He did it with a feeling of annoyance that he knew was unreasonable Unlike most commuters, George Hurst did not find the process of getting to work every morning [a] hysterical sprint. . . . He enjoyed the hours just after dawn and the small chores with which he filled them: putting on the coffee; taking in the news- papers and the milk; letting out the dog; bringing up from the freezer in the cellar the package of horsemeat that late in the afternoon, would be d' Artagnan' s thawed- out meal; pouring Mar}' s first cup of cef- fee, tiptoeing upstairs with it and nudging her awake as he set the cup on the small table between theIr beds then coming -w- , .J >I' , ,_, "l .... : V' · .èt , ( {.{ " . \ <II , þ ,"t ---...... t. ---- - . .-;! ,; :-<> ' .' .< ,x \" \i '.j: .;:" (0 , downstairs agaIn for his shave and his shower. "It gives me a chance to come awake slowly, without any jolts," George had once explained to Mary. "And to do some thinking. " "What do you think about?" "N othing much," George had said "Business mostly. I plan my day." The plan for this one, which included lunch with Nick Perrinl, one of George Hurst's oldest clients, had been jogging along smoothly, taking the sort of solid shape in George's mind that he always aimed at, when Miss Akst's unexpected phone call had come crashing in. George made an effort to conceal his annoyance as he reached for the phone. It stood on the counter under the cup- board in which Mary kept cereals and canned goods. George picked up the phone and moved ",,.ith it around the side of the cupboard toward the place where, under the magnetic knife rack, the Hurst family's part-time maid, Carolina, had hung the small mirror she had won two years ago at the Danbury Fair. "Hello," George said. "Miss Akst ?" One's curiosity is aroused: What brand of coffee, milk, horsemeat, and cereal? S. S. PIerce canned goods, or homelier brands? What kind of dog? Two newspapers, but which ones? of I' "l ; " A""" ./:. .. 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